2013 Mini John Cooper Works Countryman ALL4 Dakar Winner

Mini tosses France a bone in the form of a special-edition Countryman.

Mini loves to celebrate stuff, and now it’s partying in honor of its back-to-back wins at the brutal Dakar Rally, as well as driver Stéphane Peterhansel’s 11th Dakar trophy. But rather than drop it like it’s hot or bust out the bubbly, Mini is instead introducing an extremely limited-production Dakar-themed John Cooper Works Countryman ALL4 to be sold exclusively in Peterhansel’s home country of France.

Vive Peterhansel! Voici Une Mini!

It’s rare that we’re jealous of France, but this Countryman, whose official name is John Cooper Works Countryman ALL4 Dakar Winner 2013, has our hearts aflutter. Clumsy name aside, anything rally-themed is instantly cool, and the special-edition Countryman is doubly cool because its make over is inspired by actual motorsports provenance. We’ll gloss over the Dakar-winning Mini’s tenuous connection to the Countryman you can actually buy—campaigned by the Monster Energy X-Raid team, the race car is a tube-framed, custom monster powered by a BMW diesel inline-six—because a win is a win.

The Countryman ALL4 Dakar Winner gets a matte-black paint job, onto which Mini slaps a largely off-the-shelf stripe package. However, the stripes are rendered in the same nuclear-green color that graces Peterhansel’s Dakar Countryman, and Mini adds “Mini ALL4 Racing” lettering to the body-side stripes and Peterhansel’s logo and signature to the hood. The rally car’s racing number—302—is applied to each front door. The roadgoing car’s aggressive, rally-style treatment is rounded out by bumper-mounted auxiliary driving lamps and a set of 19-inch wheels.

The Countryman Dakar Winner’s cabin is more subtle than its exterior, with black leather seats sporting Peterhansel’s logo on their headrests, green contrast stitching for the shift boot and floor mats, and green interior striping. A numbered plaque is affixed to the dashboard, and the driver faces a John Cooper Works sports steering wheel.

More JCW, Less Monster Truck

If you were hoping the special-edition Mini Countryman would get a 3.0-liter BMW diesel six, well, prepare to be let down. Everyone with realistic expectations should be fairly content with the JCW turbocharged four under the Dakar Winner’s hood. It makes the same 208 horsepower and 207 lb-ft of torque as it does in other JCW models, and that power gets routed to all four wheels via Mini’s ALL4 all-wheel-drive system.

Gallic types might be the only folks to get the opportunity to buy the JCW Countryman Dakar Winner, but only a small number actually will take one home. That’s because Mini is only producing 11 of the commemorative Countrymans—one for each of Peterhansel’s Dakar wins. Of course, excepting the Peterhansel-specific graphics, a Countryman can be easily optioned to duplicate Mini’s effort. Literally any JCW Countryman with driving lights and stripes amounts to 95 percent of the Dakar Winner, and, as a bonus, you won’t have to chew on that stupendously long name when people ask you about your car.